Today’s Highlights:
* Under the Radar Festival, offering livestream and on-demand performances, premieres at Off-Broadway’s Public Theater.
* Broadway Murder Mystery’s Bullets on Broadway digital theatrical experience, where the audience can either “play the part” or “solve the crime,” streams at 8 PM ET.
Click here for more information and tickets.
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RIP: Theater director Lee Breuer, who spent most of his time creating new works that subverted industry expectations, died Jan. 3 at the age of 83.
Mr. Breuer was a co-founder of Mabou Mines, an Off-Broadway company that created new adaptations of popular works. Among the more recent productions were Peter and Wendy at the New Victory Theatre (1997), Mabou Mines DollHouse at St. Ann’s Warehouse (2003), Red Beads at the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts (2005), and La Divina Caricatura, Part 1, The Shaggy Dog at La MaMa Experimental Theater (2013).
While preferring to spend his time in the world of experimental theatre, Mr. Breuer also found success in larger venues like the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, and the Comédie-Française in Paris.
His mainstream breakthrough came in the 1980’s with The Gospel at Colonus. Set in the context of a black Pentecostal service, the adaptation of Sophocles’ Oedipus celebrates the 2,400-year-old myth of Oedipus’ redemption with a gospel and blues score. Mr. Breuer wrote the book and lyrics with Bob Telson providing the music. The musical debuted at the BAM Harvey Theater as part of the inaugural Next Wave Festival in 1983. Mr. Breuer and Telson were co-finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1985, and the show debuted on Broadway in 1988 at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre. The production earned a Tony nomination for Mr. Breuer’s book.
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Off-Broadway’s Red Bull Theater presents a FREE benefit reading of The African Company Presents Carlyle Brown’s Richard III on Mon. Jan. 11 at 7:30 PM ET (and then available through Jan. 15 at 7 PM ET), directed by Carl Cofield.
Clifton Duncan, Edward Gero, Dion Johnstone, Paul Niebanck, Antoinette Robinson, Craig Wallace, and Jessika D. Williams.
In 1821 — forty years before the abolition of slavery, and fifty years before Black Americans earned the right to vote — two productions of Richard III are on the rialto. One is presented by the African Company of New York, known for putting on plays in a downtown Manhattan theatre to which both Black and white audiences flocked. The other is helmed by Stephen Price, an uptown theater impresario who — fearful of the African Company’s production, which is garnering large white audiences — manipulates the law and employs his privilege to shutter the competition. Shakespeare is the cultural battleground in this inventive, emotional, and energetic retelling of a pivotal moment in American theater history.
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Disney has announced additional casting for its live-action remake of “The Little Mermaid,” directed by Rob Marshall, with new music by Lin Manuel Miranda.
Previously announced: Halle Bailey (Ariel), Melissa McCarthy (Ursula), Javier Bardem (King Triton), Daveed Diggs (Sebastian), Awkwafina (Scuttle), Jacob Tremblay (Flounder), and Jonah Hauer-King (Prince Eric).
Newly announced: Noma Dumezweni (role is being kept under wraps).
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Margaret Hall’s “Gemignani: Life and Lessons From Broadway and Beyond” will be released this Fall on Applause Theatre & Cinema Books.
Gemignani has served as a music director for more than 4 decades, starting out as a replacement during the original production of Follies. Additional credits includes A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd, Evita, Passion, Into the Woods, Assassins, Sunday in the Park With George, and the most recent Kiss Me, Kate.
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Please help save Birdland! The beloved NYC jazz club, a NYC staple for more than 77 years, is on the verge of closing. Please consider donating — any amount will be gratefully appreciated.
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A new digital film series, conceived by Ted Sperling, inspired by Adam Guettel’s song cycle Myths and Hymns, will be divided into 4 chapters, premiering Jan. 13, Feb. 24, Apr. 14, and May 26 here.
Myths and Hymns was first performed under the title Saturn Returns in 1998 at The Public Theater, under the title Saturn Returns, and explores the nature of faith through Greek mythology and ancient hymnals.
Jan. 13 (6:30 PM ET): Flight. Inspired by Greek myths and a 19th-Century Presbyterian hymnal, the 1998 cycle is a kaleidoscopic collection of musical genres as it explores the nature of faith and longing in a secular world. New short musical films will illustrate the protagonist’s exploration of Flight, Work, Love, and Faith. The piece will include the songs “Prometheus,” performed by Anderson & Roe; “Saturn Returns: The Flight,” performed by Joshua Henry; “Icarus,” performed by Mykal Kilgore and Norm Lewis; “Migratory V,” performed by Julia Bullock, Renée Fleming, and Kelli O’Hara; “Pegasus,” performed by Jose Llana, Capathia Jenkins, and Elizabeth Stanley; and “Jesus, the Mighty Conqueror,” performed by Take 6.
The lineup for future editions is still TBA.
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The 63rd annual Grammy Awards, originally set to air Jan. 31 on CBS, have been postponed due to the spread of COVID in California. A new date is TBA.
Best Musical Theater Album nominations:
“Jagged Little Pill”
“American Utopia”
“Soft Power”
“Amélie”
“The Prince of Egypt”
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Sell/Buy/Date will be adapted into a documentary film, written by & starring Sarah Jones. Filming is expected to begin in March.
The play is inspired by the real-life experiences of people affected by the commercial sex industry. The documentary will follow Jones as well as several characters from the play and include interviews and former sex workers, experts, and celebrities.
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James Graham, Elton John & Jake Shear’s musical on the life of Tammy Faye Bakker (currently untitled) is in development, with hopes of opening in London in Fall 2021.
While focusing on Bakker, the musical will explore the impact of evangelicalism and American politics, in particular the rise of Donald Trump. Bakker, who first gained fame for the “The PTL Club,” a televangelist program that she co-founded with her first husband Jim Bakker in 1974. The couple went on to host many off-off programs and opened Heritage USA, a Christian theme p ark. Bakker is notable for her eccentric and glamorous persona as well as for her moral views, particularly her acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community and reaching out to HIV/AIDS patients at the height of the AIDS epidemic. She also released 16 albums from the 1970s through the 1990s. In 1996, Bakker was diagnosed with colon cancer, which ultimately led to her death in 2007.
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A benefit performance of Guillermo Mendez M., Guadalupe Sandoval & Javier Vilalta’s Anjou: The Musical Horror Tale, in support of BC/EFA, will stream Fri. Jan. 29 at 8 PM ET (and available through Feb. 2) here, directed by Roberto Araujo, with music direction by John McDaniel
Javier Muñoz, Eden Espinosa, Shereen Pimentel, Bianca Marroquín, Julia Murney, Kristie Dale Sanders, Caroline Bowman, Eva Tavares, Austin Colby, Nathan Cockfroft, Kevin Curtis, Gabriel Hayman, and Michael Perrie Jr.
As Charles IX is crowned as the new monarch, the Catholic church puts pressure on Queen Catherine de’ Medici to eradicate Protestantism in France. The treacherous queen has a plan of her own: to remain in power through her beloved and over-conceited son, Henry of Anjou, and to plan her daughter’s wedding with a Protestant knight, while executing one of the bloodiest events in history. Ultimately, the piece turns this tragic moment in history into an exploration of kindness and acceptance against today’s background of injustice.